EE, THANK you for the picture of your Dark Shadows, I am astonished at the size of it. Little did I know it could get that large. I not only have one which is growing nicely, I ordered a second one this spring. Now, I suppose I'll be covered up in Dark Shadows! Wow, it is so pretty. And, it is one of the fragrants too. Harry, your garden is a perfect spot to meander. Not only are the hosta in fine form, the entire space is well balanced and appropriately arranged. Are you one who keeps a tour garden? I think it is beautiful. Surely you have help maintaining it in such a pristine condition?

Jonny, I am sure you remembered the Sports Illustrated swim suit shoot for its great dialog, as well as its gorgeous examples. Ah, Jon-Boy, you left yourself open for that one. ...... ....but I know what you mean. These days, my hands shake more. Not so easy to hold steady. There comes a breeze just at the wrong time, and the scapes wiggle on me. My back gets a twitch in it. I suddenly forget everything I knew about operating my camera, for some reason. Guess I should try reading the manual again. I have three things I take pictures with, depending on where I am. My smarty phone is Atrix 4g, which I use in a pinch--I can upload direct and immediately to Flickr from its WiFi connection to my account at Flickr. The ASUS TF201 Android tablet takes pictures nicely, but I have a hard time composing the picture since the brightness function with daylight sort of fades out the screen and what I'm focused on. I regard it as a point and shoot camera. Then my Nikon Coolpix or whatever it is, does fine, but I don't know how to stop it from turning spots of sunlight into burnt out spots in the photo. I have broken shade in my Back40 hosta area, and waiting for a cloudy overcast day could take a long time. I take my shots when I can get em, for better or worse. In the month of May, I took over 1200 garden shots, mostly of the hosta. I mean EVERYTHING was picture worthy in my eyes. In June so far, 2/3 over with, I've taken 800 garden shots. Averaging 400 shots every 10 days it seems. Could not begin to do that (or afford to do that) if it were a film camera. I'm more likely to keep less of the shots that are bad though. Although uploading direct from the cameras is a good thing, it can also lead to out of focus and blurry images if not reviewed before uploading. And shooting in the rain can lead to unexpected problems. I took a lot of pictures and they looked fine normal size. But when I viewed them in slideshow full screen, I saw that there was a spot of dirty water or something similar, in the same spot on a series of photos. Oh boy. That was irritating. Someone mentioned a little before this happened, be sure to clean your camera lens. And the lesson came home to me, loud and clear. Those spots on the lens can ruin all your beautiful photos, and flowers and leaves do not stay the same for very long. It might be the only chance you get to shoot a fantastic plant.

A bed called Kokopeli would probably not appropriately have hosta in it (LOL). I have long been fascinated by the world-wide universality of variations of the word "Mano" as it applies to a great spirit or god in so many cultures. In some native american languages it is "Manitoon". In others it is "Manitou".Biblically food from God is called "Mano". Some of us believe we were made in the image of God so we call ourselves "man" and refer to ourselves as "huMAN": etc.,etc.---etc. I'd not made the association between the name Anisazi and Anishinaabe until you mentioned it. I read in the Michener book Centennial that the name Arapaho translates to "The People", which seems to have nothing in common. Pronunciation is important. One would have to properly pronounce Ojibwe to see how it could have been mis-interpreted as Chippewa. Ojibwe is a very complicate language. I am tirelessly working on how I would be identified in Ojibwe as "he who crawls through his hosta gardens with a camera in one hand and a clipboard in the other". Sorry - this is straying from how we name our gardens. Les Hwcthgwaciohaacbito (LOL).

Utog, it is so nice to see your garden still full of color! Mine only has my declining Limelight Hydrangea, autumn joy sedum and burning bush. All the leaves are falling everywhere too. Today I cut back the few hostas remaining and dug out the pepper and tomato plants. Love the Carmillas you have......do the need full sun? Will we see your garden in November? debra